


Shattered Obsidian

by Thorinsmut



Series: Smoke Sapphire [4]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Complete, Gen, Kidfic, Knives, M/M, One Shot, Threats, emotionally constipated dwarves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-21
Updated: 2017-11-21
Packaged: 2019-02-05 06:57:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12789246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thorinsmut/pseuds/Thorinsmut
Summary: Obsidian is produced when felsic lava extruded from a volcano cools rapidly with minimal crystal growth. It is hard and brittle; and therefore fractures with very sharp edges.Of course Maylin noticed when Nori stopped being able to spar with her.





	Shattered Obsidian

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shakespeareaddict](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shakespeareaddict/gifts).



> In case you haven't heard yet, I've got some very exciting things going on irl, which you can find out about on my author blog:  
> [ts-porter.tumblr.com](http://ts-porter.tumblr.com)

Of course Maylin noticed when Nori stopped being able to spar with her.

Not quickly. He was too careful for that. He would still warm up with her, or demonstrate and drill moves with her. He just couldn’t go against her when she was putting her all into it.

She still had Dwalin she could spar with, and all manner of soldiers and young dwarves her own age. It was just Nori who couldn’t spar with her, and eventually she noticed.

He only had to brush her off outright three times. He used the excuses of being too tired, or busy teaching someone else a knife move, or simply foisted her of on someone who looked eager to face her. Mostly, he tried not to be there when her blood was up and she was looking for a new target to test herself against.

Maylin noticed that, of course, and being Dwalin’s daughter through and through, she confronted him about it as soon as she put the pieces together. She broke off her nearly-won match before seeking a yield, and chased him out of the training hall when he made to sneak out the door. And if it had been anyone but _Maylin_ chasing him, Nori would have disappeared before they made it out the door. Twenty years of living under the same roof, both loving Dwalin in their own ways, had softened him toward her. He steeled himself, walked slowly, and made no outward sign of noticing her barreling him down. Even with all his instincts screaming.

At least there was no one else in the hallway to see this.

She grabbed him, powerful fingers so very like her father’s digging into his shoulder, and yanked him around to look at her. “Why?” she demanded. Like this, flushed red with her wiry brown hair and beard all in disarray, sweaty and dressed in nothing but a breastband and breeches, she _looked_ like Dwalin the most too.

“Because I _can’t_ ,” Nori answered. It cut just as much leaving his mouth as it had in his heart, when he made the hard realization.

“Can’t? _Can’t_?” Maylin threw her hands up. “Why, for the love of the maker’s hairy balls, _can’t_ you? You spar with everyone else. You fight Ada, and he’s so much stronger than me.”

“No, he isn’t,” Nori snapped. “And that’s why.”

Maylin’s brow furrowed, confusion sapping some of the strength of her anger. “I’m not… I can’t be?” She shook her head. “I’m nowhere close to beating him, still. And you spar with him all the time, why not with me?” And there, enough of the anger had bled away for the hurt to show through. Of course it hurt her that Nori couldn’t share one of her favorite activities with her anymore.

Nori did not wince.

“You don’t have his skill,” Nori agreed, “You don’t have his control. But you have his strength, and I can’t…” His throat wanted to close. He shook his head, and forced the words through anyway. “I’m not good enough to spar with you, Maylin. Not without making it a real fight. I _can’t_ risk that.”

There. That explained things, didn’t it?

Nori turned away from her, more than glad to be done with the conversation. His intention was to leave. Go find a quiet corner of the mountain to lick his wounds, or raise hell in the Chert District. Whatever whim won the moment.

Of course, that wasn’t counting on Maylin being as bone-headed stubborn as Dwalin was. It was a miscalculation.

“I don’t _understand_!” Maylin ran after him, two long steps to grab his arm and keep him. Maybe, had she been even ten years younger, it would have worked. She was a grown dwarf now. Nori let his arm go loose in her grasp, granting himself the maximum flexibility from it, and spun the opposite direction to bring his heel down hard on the outside of her knee. She bellowed as she went to one knee, grip loosening just enough for Nori to snake his arm out of it. He kept his momentum, whirling all the way around and behind her. In a heartbeat, his sharp knives were in his hands and menacing both her throat and back, one knee in her back to push her off balance and emphasize the knife to her throat.

“No. You don’t.” Nori hissed. “You have no idea what I am. You think I’m just you father’s favorite fuck? That I’m nothing but the dwarf with the pretty hair and sneaky stories? Understand this, Maylin: I’m a killer. I fight to _kill_. And if I forget that, even for a moment…” He could hardly speak it. The thought of killing Maylin was too awful. He never wanted to hurt her, no more than he did Ori or Dori or Dwalin. And so she had to understand. “You have your father’s strength, but not his control,” he repeated, instead. “If you hit me wrong, and I forget for even an instant that I’m sparring, you couldn’t stop me from killing you. You don’t have the skill to stop me, not yet. Do you _understand_ now?”

Maylin’s breath came tiny trembling gasps as she tried not to push into the knives he had on her. Her hands, half raised as though she’d thought to catch him, were shaking. “Nori,” her voice was small, scared, like the child she’d been when he first came into her home as Dwalin’s lover.

Nori released her, tucking his knives away as quickly as he’d drawn them and stepping back. He hated it, hated her fear just as much as he hated his own. Hated that it had been necessary to get it through her head. The line of Durin, and particularly Dwalin’s branch, were not well known for their subtlety. And here Nori, good for nothing spy and occasional assassin, had attached himself to them.

If Dwalin would still have him, once Maylin told him about _this_.

Maylin’s hands came to her throat first, feeling it to be sure it was unhurt, then her knee as she checked that it was only bruised before she levered herself to her feet. There were tears glimmering on her lashes, when she turned her eyes on him, but she didn’t run. She dashed the tears from her eyes, chin squaring.

“Fine,” she spat out, like it was a challenge. “Then I’ll get better.”

“Good.” Nori didn’t doubt she could. He would not be surprised if her reputation outshone Dwalin’s some day. Not that he’d likely be around long enough to see it. He’d have left it at that, gone his own way and dealt with Dwalin’s inevitable anger when he couldn’t avoid it anymore, if Maylin hadn’t followed up.

“Until then… can you still practice with me?” Her fingers twisted together, a nervous tick from her childhood that Nori had needed to remind himself again and again not to try and train out of her. She wasn’t a criminal and a spy like him. No one was going to be using it against her. “You can still teach me, even if I can’t spar with you?”

She really was her father’s daughter, through and through. Even when it came to forgiving Nori for being himself. Nori had a lump in his throat, and he let it show when he swallowed it down and nodded.

Maylin smiled wide, and her whole face glowed with it, like a geode cracking open to show all the jewels inside. “Great!” She headed back toward the training hall like it never occurred to her that Nori wouldn’t follow. Of course he followed her, jewel of his heart just as much as she was Dwalin’s.

“First, teach me how you did that twisty stuff. It was _mean_!”

.

**Author's Note:**

> comments are love


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